Health services research has become an important scientific discipline that provides the evidence needed to ensure the delivery of quality health care and appropriate prevention interventions in the United States. In the past 15 years, health service scientists have made important contributions to various aspects of the health care system such as racial disparities, cost, quality, access, and equity. Under the leadership of the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), evaluation of optimal health care practice and disease prevention interventions are now based on scientific evidence. Evidence-based medicine and disease prevention strategies necessitate the need for health service researchers to be skilled in the quantitative sciences, including study design, data analysis, economics, system modeling, multidisciplinary collaborations and outcome measures. For the past 14 years the AHRQ training program at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (Case SOM) has focused on developing Health Service Research scientists with these skills. The success of these new scientists, as described below, has been rewarding for the faculty. In addition, the total number of graduates with MS, PhD or MPH degrees from all programs in the Department since 1993 is 314. [unreadable] [unreadable] During the entire 14-year period of funding by AHRQ we have trained 32 students, this includes post-docs, pre-docs and MD/PhDs (this includes current students). Among these students there are six minority persons and a student with a physical disability (one female and one male Native Americans, three African American females and one African American male). The graduates have used their new skills to pursue productive careers in health services research. We have tracked these students and found that they have been Principal Investigator on research grants totaling more than 5.8 million dollars, following their graduation from the training program. The past and current students have published 303 peer reviewed papers and reviews. Also, since 1994 the current and past trainees have made 497 oral presentations at scientific meetings and seminars. In this application we seek funding to continue training MD/PhD students and predoc PhD students. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]